


Interrogation

by Shadow_of_Quill



Series: Kinky Bingo Fics [2]
Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Injections, Needles, Nonsexual Torture, ambiguous - pretty much everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 05:59:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12227151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_of_Quill/pseuds/Shadow_of_Quill
Summary: His silence is all he has. And someday, he'll lose it.





	Interrogation

_"How. Did. You. Know."_

He stares back, jaw clenched; his silence is the only thing he has now, and he won't give it up. Certainly not for the man - the _boy_ \- stalking around him like a tiger, demanding answers as if he has a right to them.

The eyes meeting his are fever-bright with madness, and he wonders if no one else can really see it. Are they wilfully blind, or is this one of those many things that are only clear to him?

"No answer?" 

He turns his eyes away deliberately, dismissing the madman. His silence is all he has left, and he will not give it up despite knowing that he is making himself vulnerable - tying his pride to his silence means that breaking one will break the other, and eventually his silence _will_ be broken.

But not yet, he promises himself.

His interrogator hisses with frustration, fists clenching - and then he grins suddenly, face ugly in a way that no one outside this room has ever seen.

"I've brought some new toys today," he announces, one hand waving in a misleadingly elegant gesture to a trolley set just where he can see its edges. "Just. For. You."

He tries to hide the tremors the words inspire, and tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that his interrogator refuses to do lasting damage, less from concern for his wellbeing than from the knowledge that he could use the injuries to mark the passing of time.

They are both aware that his captor wishes his mind to be usable after he is broken - he is far too rare a discovery to be destroyed on a whim. And so he sleeps - irregularly, but frequently. He is fed meals designed to be unpleasant without lacking in nutrition. 

And he refuses to speak. 

It has been a long time - he thinks - since he was first captured. Since he first realised that he would be _held,_ that his escape was not an inevitability as he had supposed but an unlikely possibility.

It has been less time since his captor lost faith in mental stress alone, and began to add physical pain and punishment to these - so far unfruitful - interrogations. Each time, he begins with those three words. "Just. For. You."

He has been learning how many ways there are to cause pain without damaging someone. He knows, somewhere in his mind, that there are many more that he has yet to experience.

He's afraid he'll experience all of them, his captor enacting cruelty after cruelty on his hapless form.

He's terrified he won't, his nerve breaking at some point in the future and leaving him babbling answers to whatever questions he is asked. He _knows,_ deep in his heart, that if and when he does break his captor will continue the pain as a punishment for his weakness.

He knows because he would do the same, if he were the captor and not the captive. He would punish the boy - man - for failing, because that would mean that he could also fail, and he would refuse to ever accept that.

As the captive, he is being forced to accept it.

His captor reaches for his shackled arms, something hidden between his fingers. He tries to guess what (a clamp? An electrode? Please not an injection, please, he knows it's only his imagination but his skin still burns where the capaiscin was injected) and then tries not to cry out as he feels the too-familiar sting of a needle sliding into his flesh.

The needle is left in place as his torturer inserts a second. And then a third. The relief that should come from the knowledge that they aren't hypodermics is completely eclipsed by the fear of what they might be.

His torturer gives him a sickly smile as he draws back. "I think I'll give you a preview," he says, as if it's some twisted mercy he's offering and not a torture all its own. He pulls out a box of matches and lights one, holding it so the flame is steady and bright - and then raises it to the needles.

The burn isn't a surprise. The fact that it doesn't stop - that is. The heat is rising, and he starts pulling at his bonds as he realises that his captor has only lit one of the needles in him.

The satisfied look on his torturer's face says it all. He bares his teeth, tries not to know how helpless he is, how frightened, how pained -

His torturer pats his cheek mockingly. "You'd better hold still while I insert the ones in your scalp. It would be such a shame if the match caught your hair by accident, wouldn't it?"

He wheezes, wanting to scream and not wanting to give the bastard that satisfaction, wanting to believe that he can't mean to insert those burning pins into his _face-!_

He's been through worse, he's been through worse, he's been through worse - the words are a mantra and are no help at all, because they're true and all that means is that he knows his torturer will do this to him.

The needles are clustered in the nerves. (Of course they are.) Something in the room is whining, high-pitched and desperate, and his torturer cups his face and murmurs so gently to him, "All you have to do is answer me. How did you know?"

He doesn't answer.

He burns.


End file.
